And yet another Thanksgiving

November 27, 2025

Ten years ago I wrote what is still a rare poem for me. I've since published a short volume of poems that is available only on Kindle Unlimited, and it's been years since I've added anything to it. Writing poems is not my strong suite, but every once in a while, something comes to mind. 

This year I'm revisiting that early Thanksgiving poem.  My days are very different now. I'm on my own. But looking back, I was on my own even when my parents and grandparents lived. The fracturing of family began long ago but now the cousins and I are rebuilding our version of family. It doesn't look the same as when the two older generations were alive, but that's okay. Today, my family is more accepting, having learned those same lessons I was taught. We're kinder now.  

I wrote this poem after a solitary walk in the woods. I walked to steel myself for the day ahead, for the demands that would be made of me. It truly was "conform or be cast out" in those days. It did suck the air away from me. 

Today, the last verse has taken on a new meaning. The road does lead home to all that is mine, and with the passing of time, the path is truly mine. Having lived with unattainable demands, I now sit back and listen to the two younger generations and simply enjoy them for who they are. Our roots are entwined, but I put no pressure on them to bend in my direction. 

They are young trees. Let them grow where they will. Let their memories of Thanksgiving be full of air. 

_*_*_

Standing Guard

Long ago I tread a path
A misty woodland way
I had no company along the trek
So the trees could have their say

They spoke to me in silence
With movement seen not heard
And I replied in quiet kind
Walking without a word

The day ahead held demands
Devoid of mist and air
I could not whine or complain
Or do what trees don't dare

Beneath the ground unseen by all
Their roots do intertwine
Reminding me the path ahead
Leads home to all that's mine

 _*_*_*_*_*_*_

KC Kendricks
My home on the web- Between the Keys: 
http://kckendricks.blogspot.com
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Life through the eyes of my black Lab, Greenbrier Smokey Deuce: deucesday.blogspot.com

My country life at The Hideaway/Holly Tree Manor: hollytreemanor.blogspot.com

KC Kendricks, Rayne Forrest, Thanksgiving, family, LGBT gay romance, Kindle romance, m/m romance, changing times, generations, a writer's life, new style family, poems, Just the Rain

We're having fun now (just joking, it ain't fun)

February 25, 2021

It used to be you could say "shoot me" to explain your level of frustration but it's not safe to do that these days. Too bad because I'm definitely at that point. 

Why, you ask?

Yahoo is ending its Site Builder website software. My .com has used Site Builder since 2004, and it couldn't be any easier to use. So OF COURSE they'd do away with it. 

They've offered to allow people to keep their website past ending support BUT you will no longer be able to add to it OR make any updates. Yes, it's frustrating. 

If I have to learn new software and create an entirely new website from scratch, I will certainly do it someplace less expensive. Not that Yahoo webhosting broke the bank or anything near to it. It's just there are cheaper alternatives out there if I want to keep the .com, and I do. 

I haven't made a decision on where to go, but I am going to finish a project I started a l-o-n-g time ago, and that's load book description pages here at Between the Keys. I'll at least have a decent fall-back for when the current website goes down. Check out the menu to the left for portals to information. As of this date, it's a work in progress so you could end up at the .com for the next little bit. But not for long if I can get 'r done. 

It was a good run. Seventeen years. 

More information when it becomes available. 

KC Kendricks

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The Passing of an Era

August 4, 2012

Life is a mixed bag of events. You win some, you lose some, you cherish the good memories, and try to move on from the bad. I’ve been so very blessed in my life with good memories - so many, I’ve discovered, I don’t remember them all until reminded.

This morning, I was up and out of the house at six o’clock to meet my closest cousin to end an era in our lives. This man is more brother to me than cousin. We were raised side-by-side, our respective parents in my maternal linage being siblings, and then he and I only children. I met him on the road in front of our grandparents’ house and we shared coffee and memories.

We grew up in the modest brick house attached to an old log cabin, built by our grandfather. I lived there longer, but it hardly matters. In the late 1950’s we were all there - grandparents, parents, and two spoiled toddlers. The bond remains strong whereas all things brick and mortar are fleeting. While the brick house stood firm decades beyond the crumbling logs, Time will have her way. Her most wicked tools are not wind, water and fire, but the stubborn pride and fragility of humans in declining years.  

When our grandfather passed, the last of our first generation, all agreed my cousin should get the home place to ease the way of the fourth generations, and to place a trust for the fifth, which is growing. To build their future, our past must give way.

My cousin-brother and I reminisced for a while, and then Time demanded her due. By ten o’clock, the brick house was gone. In some small selfish way, I’m glad no future stranger will ever live there. It belonged to my grandparents, and they to it. The joy that lived in the house was Family, and I’m well content that it will always belong only to us.

As I write this, the smell of smoke lingers, but is already fading. What will never fade are the memories of life in that house, that haven a good man built for the family he cherished above all else. It was a hard decision, and my cousin-brother and I have shed tears over it, but never harsh words.

Would our grandparents be sad to see the house gone? I’m sure they would be. It was their home, where they raised their family into the third generation - my own. But now a new house will be built, almost where the old one stood. Another member of the fourth generation is about to marry and, hopefully, in due time, present us with new toddlers to play in the yard where my mother and uncle played, and where my cousin-brother and I picked dandelion blooms on bright spring days for a nickel.

And that will please the spirits of my grandparents.

KC Kendricks

Changes to SER and SMR

May 27, 2012

One of my great-grandmothers was a Dunker. On her kitchen wall she had a piece of embroidery she’d completed as girl in the late 1890’s. The frame was chipped and beaten, and the cloth yellowed, and I suspect it had been on her wall for at least half a century. Looking back, I‘m sure only the embroidery floss held the cloth together. The verses she’d carefully added were from the King James Version of Ecclesiastes 3.

To everything there is a season. If I know anything in my life, it’s those six words are Truth.

A time to begin and a time to end, and the time has come to shut down Saturday Evening Romance and Saturday Morning Reviews to open posting. Like everything in life, those two blogs have run their course. I was happy to open them and offer a place for fellow authors to post excerpts and brag about good reviews. I hope someone else will start similar blogs and offer me the chance to join in.

Note to that person: I assure you I can read and I WILL follow the posted rules.

It is MY failing that I get so annoyed when writers prove they can’t read. It’s MY shortcoming that I lack patience when published writers don’t understand the meaning of “excerpts only” or “reviews only.” It’s a flaw in MY character that I believe rules and boundaries enable all of us to get along together in the same space.

A time to keep and a time to cast away. I’m not going to delete the blogs at this point. Those who followed the rules will be able to continue to post. Those whom I had to go behind and “clean up” posts will no longer be able to contribute. I hate to have to do it, but it’s time to reduce the stress in my life.

To everyone who participated at Saturday Evening Romance and Saturday Morning Reviews - my thanks.
KC

Borders back in the news

I'm proud to be an epublished author.

So if you think it's odd I hate to think of a world without brick and mortar book stores, please chalk it up to one of the contradictions that make up each one of us and define who we are.

Publisher's Lunch keeps up to date with the happenings in the publishing world, and today included an article on Borders. The article states if the $215M offer to buy doesn't work out, Borders will have to liquidate. That would be a shame for my little town, but a possible boon for the epublishing industry.

Maybe I can take a mason jar to Borders and capture a bit of that new-book fragrance before it's too late. Sort of a homage to my younger years.

Read the article here:
http://news.yahoo.com/borders-book-stores-considers-215-million-sale-bid-173100288.html